Danish society, governance, education, school leadership, teaching and purposes of education are analysed and discussed as an interplay of two discourses: the Welfare State Discourse and the Competitive State Discourse. The Welfare State Discourse emerged shortly after World War II and the Competitive State Discourse in the 1980s. However, that is not to say that they replace each other. It is more accurate to state that they function simultaneously, albeit with one gaining dominance over the other in policy and in practice, with practice being more inert than policy. The discourses are based on a set of political, moral and ethical values or norms that are often not made explicit to the public. The analyses intend to uncover those values. [For the complete volume, "Educational Leadership, Improvement and Change: Discourse and Systems in Europe," see ED611634.]